On February 11, the New Orleans City Council held a special council meeting to discuss the alleged multi-million dollar settlement and related Cooperative Endeavor Agreement between the City and Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) that Mayor Cantrell’s administration previously approved and is now refusing to pay. In 2019, the Orleans Parish School Board sued the City for withholding millions in dedicated tax revenue. The settlement agreement, according to Verite, “was negotiated between school board officials, the City Council and Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño, who is Cantrell’s top deputy.” According to NOLA.com, the agreement outlined an initial $20 million payment, to be paid in two installments, followed by a $7 million payment annually over the next decade. After the first half of the settlement payment was not paid to the school board at the end of last year, Cantrell announced that she would not honor the agreement. The money from this settlement would help fill OPSB’s $36 million budget deficit. During the meeting, councilmembers grilled CAO Montaño, while members of the public called for his resignation. The following is an excerpt of public comments submitted in-person before the Council, minimally edited for clarity and length.
I wouldn’t have taken time off from school today if this wasn’t a serious issue. This past week, New Orleans hosted and celebrated the Super Bowl, and our students in New Orleans marched in the parade on Saturday, they helped with the kids’ day at City Park on Wednesday, many current and former students were part of the beautiful pre-game performance on Sunday, and we’re now heading into Mardi Gras where our students and schools play a major part. And I know many of us are proud of our young people for shining and representing the city—I love to see that we have students here today—but I’m demanding that we start to do better to make sure that we are financially investing the money where it belongs and that we don’t continue to make our students and our teachers collateral damage… Please do the right thing and stop insisting and hoping that teachers and kids are gonna do more and more with less and less.1Lauren J.
The vast majority of our students and families live below the poverty line, and I’m here today to express full support for the Cooperative Endeavor Agreement because it halts the City’s practice of diverting funds that are legally intended for our schools. We believe it’s critical that schools receive every dollar of public money allocated to us by law, and our students deserve no less… When we think about our budgets at schools, 70% of our budgets go to staffing. What that means is… we will have less people in our schools to serve kids.2Sabrina P., FirstLine Schools
I served 31 years of incarceration. I came to this meeting today to appeal to this body to please not close the Martin Luther King school. I feel like I would have been less than a man if I did not speak out on how important it is to keep schools named after this man open at all costs… I taught school at Angola for 21 years, and I saw a change take place. So I know what works. The more education a person has, the more they can discern right from wrong, what’s good or bad, and make good decisions in life.3Jerry C.
This maneuver of moving money around to pay for other things—robbing Peter to pay Paul—it seems to be not a bug, but a feature of the system. And so I’d appreciate it if we could actually spend the money in the right way because we’re gonna destroy ourselves. And based on what’s happening in Baton Rouge and DC, this public education thing is gonna get flushed right down the toilet. So if we can’t do things like simply putting the money where it’s supposed to go, we’re making it so easy on them to destroy education… But we do have a really nice bridge that costs $21 million that’s well lit up. So we need to get our priorities straight or else our kids are not gonna want to be here, and our parents are not gonna want our kids to be here.4Bruce R.
As a parent of a New Orleans public school student and a resident of District A, I am openly calling for Gilbert Montaño to resign. On numerous occasions, the City has been able to move several million dollars creatively for business interests. They move heaven and earth to beautify this city for millionaires and billionaires and corporate sponsors, but will continue to let down our teachers, our children, our residents, and our workers. By not collecting taxes on the wealthiest property owners of our city at levels they should, the gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow into a cavern. We cannot allow their thief administration officer to continue to take our dollars for his salary anymore.5Bob A.
Who is it that can sell and close a school? Who can sell and open a church? Who are these people, and why is there so much money being spent on closing things? Everything is closing! Our children’s schools are being turned into apartments that the citizens of New Orleans can’t even live in.6Denise C.
To follow up on these issues, you can email your City councilmembers. To submit a public comment, follow instructions at council.nola.gov. Interested in reading all comments after a meeting? You can email your councilmember or file a public records request.
illustration by Sadie Wiese
